Hazel M. Kloempken liked working with others to make things happen, whether she was volunteering in a hospital emergency room or helping to start a community library, as she did in Huntley in the late 1980s.

Mrs. Kloempken, 80, died Sunday, Sept. 21, of congestive heart failure in The Garlands of Barrington. She had moved there in March after living in Huntley since the early 1980s.

In Huntley, she was part of a group that started the Huntley Area Public Library District, which includes Huntley as well as parts of Lake in the Hills and Algonquin and portions of unincorporated Coral and Grafton Townships in McHenry County and Rutland Township in Kane County.

"She and some other people decided in 1988 Huntley needed a library," said library director Virginia Maravilla.

It was the sort of effort at which her mother excelled, said her daughter Rosemary Jallits. "She took initiative. She'd just snap right to it. She liked being on the team."

Born Hazel Wilson, Mrs. Kloempken grew up in St. Charles, graduating from what was then St. Charles High School in 1946. She studied nursing at the Cook County School of Nursing and received a diploma as a registered nurse in 1948.

"She grew up taking care of her father and other family members," said another daughter, Susan Graunke, about her mother's choice of profession.

Mrs. Kloempken was a nurse at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and later at Hines Veterans Administration Hospital near Maywood. There she met Dr. Robert Kloempken. The two married in 1951 and she left nursing to raise the first of the couple's seven children.

In the mid-1950s, the family moved from Maywood to Arlington Heights, where her husband opened a practice in internal medicine and was on staff at Northwest Community Hospital.

Within a few years, Mrs. Kloempken was a volunteer, helping to raise money for the hospital. She then began working as a volunteer in the hospital's emergency room.

"They loved it when she came," said Jallits. "She was such a take-charge person. She liked the fast pace of the ER."

Mrs. Kloempken and her husband also liked the quiet of the country and in 1965, they bought a farm in Huntley. It was initially a weekend place, but by the early 1980s, it had become the family's home.

"We felt like we grew up on the farm," Jallits said. "My parents loved the land, loved walking in the woods."

Mrs. Kloempken had moved from a community with a wonderful library and thought that was something Huntley needed.

"She just felt it was important to have a library," said Jan Schadt, a library board member. "She was so helpful ... in helping get it started."

"She and some other people did the research, got people together and organized a referendum," Maravilla said.

In 1989, the referendum proposal was approved by voters and the library district was established, with Mrs. Kloempken as one of seven members of the original board. A small building was bought, but it took some time to renovate.

"We started giving out books in the township garage," Schadt said, "and had an arrangement with Crystal Lake."

The agreement allowed Huntley library cardholders to borrow books from Crystal Lake before Huntley's library opened in 1992.

The library moved to a larger building on Ruth Road in 1999 and is now planning an addition to that space.

Though Mrs. Kloempken shied away from accolades, her contributions have been recognized in a small way, according to Maravilla, who said Mrs. Kloempken had contributed to a wildflower garden at the library. A rock there is inscribed "Hazel's Garden."

Other survivors include another daughter, JoAnn Kowalski; three sons, John, Mark and David; 13 grandchildren; and a great-grandson. Her husband died in 1987. A son, William, died in 1968.

Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in James A. O'Connor Funeral Home, 11603 E. Main St., Huntley. Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Thursday in St. Mary Catholic Church, 10307 Dundee Rd., Huntley.